Bible Contradiction? How did David kill Goliath? And did he killed him twice?

This post is probably more technical than some of the other responses we wrote answering alleged Bible contradiction but I think it is helpful in demonstrating how a working knowledge of the original language of Scripture is helpful and important.

Today’s post will tackle the question that the Skeptic Annotated Bible pose: “How did David kill Goliath?”

Here’s the two answer they pointed out in which their point is that there is a contradiction:

With a sling only.

(“There was no sword in the had of David.”)

And David put his hand into his bag and took from it a stone and slung it, and struck the Philistine on his forehead. And the stone sank into his forehead, so that he fell on his face to the ground. 50 Thus David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone, and he struck the Philistine and killed him; but there was no sword in David’s hand. (1 Samuel 17:49-50)

He cut off his head with a sword.

Then David ran and stood over the Philistine and took his sword and drew it out of its sheath and killed him, and cut off his head with it. When the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they fled. (1 Samuel 17:51)

(Note: Scriptural quotation comes from the New American Standard Bible. What is in bold is the emphasis by the skeptic webpage.)

Also the website also asked “Or did he kill him twice?”

Let’s take a closer look at whether or not there is a contradiction:

As always when dealing with alleged Bible contradictions, we must remember what actually is a contradiction. A contradiction is when there are two claims in which one denies the other in the same sense and the same time.

Concerning timing, we see that David at first used a sling shot with verse 50 saying specifically that at that instance “there was no sword in David’s hand.” However in verse 51 we see after the use of the slingshot David used a sword. So David using the slingshot at one moment without using the sword and then later at another moment using the sword is in of itself not a contradiction because it happened at different moments. This is important as a foundation for everything else to follow.

Just in case the sequence of “David uses slingshot with no sword” is followed by “David uses sword” is in doubt, in the Hebrew text of 1 Samuel 17:51 we see the verbs “ran,” “stood over,” “took,” and “drew” are all wayyiqtol verbs which indicates sequential consecutive actions.

Concerning the skeptic’s question of whether David killed Goliath twice I would say no if we take the sense of the meaning of “kill” in today’s understanding. However, we must ask if the sense of the word “kill” used today is being used in the same way with the Hebrew text of 1 Samuel 17:50-51. This is where working with the Hebrew language is important because we must ask in what sense are the Hebrew verbs “kill” being used in both verse 50 and verse 51. Logically speaking if the sense of “kill” in verse 50 is meant in a different sense than the “kill” in verse 51 then we don’t have a logical contradiction. If there are two different sense being meant then we don’t have a contradiction in terms of the different means (slingshot or sword) employed to accomplish the two distinct actions of “kill.”

When we look at the Hebrew verbs for “kill” in verse 50 and 51 we note that they are different verbal forms. While both lexically comes from the root מוּת however both verbs appear in different verbal forms. Verse 50 uses the verb וַיְמִיתֵ֑הוּ for “kill.” The verb for “kill” in verse 51 is וַיְמֹ֣תְתֵ֔הוּ. And these two different verbal forms should tip the readers that different sense of the action is being stressed in verse 50 in contrast to verse 51 and vice versa.

In verse 50 the verb וַיְמִיתֵ֑הוּ for “kill” is in the Hiphil form. For those who know Hebrew it is common knowledge that Hiphil forms often convey the causative idea. Thus what the verb in verse 50 is telling us is that David caused Goliath’s death. The means that David used which began Goliath’s death is of course the slingshot.

In verse 51 the verb וַיְמֹ֣תְתֵ֔הוּ for “kill” is in the Polel form. It appears less frequently than the other verbal forms of מוּת. According to Old Testament scholar Robert Chisholm this verbal form has “a specialized shade of meaning, referring to finishing off someone who is already mortally wounded” (Chisholm, Interpreting the Historical Books, 172).

In light of the above understanding of the Hebrew verbal forms, we don’t have a contradiction. Again the Hiphil form of the verb “kill” in verse 50 tells us that David began the cause of Goliath’s death by means of the slingshot. Then in verse 51 the Polel form of the verb “kill” tells us how David finished off an already mortally wounded Goliath, namely with the sword.

Also in light of the understanding of the meaning of the verbal forms we also see that there is not the problem that the skeptic raised of whether David killed Goliath twice. Obviously one can only be killed once. But the verb in verse 51 tells us how David finished off Goliath, with Goliath’s beginning to die in verse 50 due to David’s use of the slingshot.

As one might notice the resolution for this Bible contradiction hinges upon the meaning of the Polel form of the verb for “kill” in verse 51. Someone might ask what’s the proof that the Polel form of the verb has the idea of finishing off a mortally wounded individual. Here I want to further shore up my exegetical defense.

As a rule of thumb I typically prefer studying the use of a verb or verbal form in question within the very book I’m looking at. It turns out that while the Polel form of the verb for “kill” is not as frequent we do see one other appearance of the Polel form in 1 Samuel 14:13: “Then Jonathan climbed up on his hands and feet, with his armor bearer behind him; and they fell before Jonathan, and his armor bearer put some to death after him.”

Here the context of the chapter describes Jonathan’s battle against the Philistines.

Jonathan apparently was involved in combat in which some Philistines “ fell before Jonathan.” We assume that Jonathan struck them.

But note how “his armor bearer put some to death after him.” The verb used here is the Polel form which indicates that those who were struck by Jonathan and was dying was finished off by the armor bearer.

2 Samuel 1:9-10 describes an Amalekite telling a story to King David of how he finished off King Saul: “Then he said to me, ‘Please stand beside me and kill me, for agony has seized me because my life still lingers in me.’ 10 So I stood beside him and killed him, because I knew that he could not live after he had fallen. And I took the crown which was on his head and the bracelet which was on his arm, and I have brought them here to my lord.”

The word translated as “kill” in both verses 9 and 10 uses the Polel form of מוּת.

Saul of course in the context is mortally wounded and according to this Amalekite’s account is begging to be killed in verse 9. So it makes sense to understand the verb as indicating the finishing off of someone mortally wounded.

Verse 10 presupposes that meaning of the verb since the man goes on to give the reason why he finished off Saul was because Saul wouldn’t be able to live after his mortal injury.

If one more proof is needed one should also study the use of the form of the verb in Judges 9:54.

“Contradictions” like that arise from cursory thinking which I find intellectually lazy. I never – as a child, teen, or adult – saw any contradiction or ambiguity in that story. I like the approach you take in these posts. Take care.

Thank you Robert for reading this post. I agree with you Robert there seem to be always some degree with intellectual laziness behind these claims of alleged contradictions. How are you doing by the way brother?

49 And David put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone, and slang it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone sunk into his forehead; and he fell upon his face to the earth.

50 So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and smote the Philistine, and slew him; but there was no sword in the hand of David.

51 Therefore David ran, and stood upon the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath thereof, and slew him; and cut off his head therewith. And when the Philistines saw their champion dead, they fled.

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This all lines up: David knocked out Goliath unconscious near-death and with Goliath’s sword David finally finished him off… Thanks for this needful article brother SlimJim. Amen.

Thank you brother Jed for reading this and also sharing your thoughts. I pray it would equip God’s people who might be going online looking for an answer to this supposed contradiction. Anything I can pray for you for brother?

Thanks for this helpful post. I was wondering if you are planning to address the “cursing of the fig tree” of Matthew 21 and Mark 11. Critics often mock that one. Addressing that issue it would be helpful. God bless.

No promises, but Lord willing I get around to it. It’s just been since our blog started looking at contradictions and difficulties there’s been a lot of requests for specific cases. I’ll keep it in mind, God bless you!

Thanks for this excellent ongoing series. I think one of the biggest problems here is skeptics seem to think people are idiots. Why would an author contradict him or herself within mere sentences of each other? Or supposing some redactor, would not such an editor pay enough attention to notice such a discrepancy? This is really grasping at straws.

Good observation concerning some of the skeptics and their view that authors and redactors are “idiots.” I think often times it stems from these skeptics having an elevated view of themselves and their reasoning ability and them being condescending towards people who have faith in God as being “stupid.” Ironicallly when they publish contradictions like the one dealt with in this post I submit it makes them look more foolish than the author. Hey thanks for reading this and commenting, how are you doing buddy?

Here is the problem.
From the post: “A contradiction is when there are two claims in which one denies the other in the same sense and the same time.”
Goliath was killed twice. At two different times. Once with a stone. Once with a sword.

1Sa 17:50 And so, without a sword, David defeated and killed Goliath with a sling and a stone!
1Sa 17:51 He ran to him, stood over him, took Goliath’s sword out of its sheath, and cut off his head and killed him. When the Philistines saw that their hero was dead, they ran away.

This is undoubtedly a questionable passage. We have to delve into the Hebrew to understand the shades of meaning. We can do this over and over with questionable passages, hoping to arrive at a reasonable answer.
What happens when we have unquestionable passages? Are we willing to delve into the Hebrew (or Greek) for these passages to understand what they really mean?

Of course not.

So, in a sense, we really do not understand what the Bible means about most things.

I am not sure I understand your point. I think many people in a sense certainly don’t understand what the Bible means but I don’t think the meaning is totally elusive from us.

You said “”What happens when we have unquestionable passages? Are we willing to delve into the Hebrew (or Greek) for these passages to understand what they really mean?
Of course not.”
Even with passages I don’t have questions pop in my mind right away, I do make it a habit to read it and translate it from the original languages when I can. It’s part of my daily devotional routine, its also part of my weekly sermon preparation and studies for my teaching. There are always things one may pick up even with passages that are “obvious.”

[…] If possible examine the passage in the original language. I realize not everyone knows the languages of Hebrew (for the Old Testament) or Greek (for the New Testament). Nor is every pastor, theologian or scholar equally strong in both. Yet there are times when knowing the original language resolves any ambiguity that the English translation (or other language translations) might have. I found this to have been helpful when answering the question “How many men were possessed with demons at the country of the Gadarenes?” and “How did David kill Goliath? And did he killed him twice?“ […]

I somewhat disagree with a reader above who wrote that he knocked Goliath out or near death. No, he killed Goliath and to prove it to those on both side lines, he cut the head off and held it high, thereby removing all doubt from the onlookers.

I agree with you Patrick. I also think there’s an irony in this great story. In 1 Samuel 17:47 David tells Goliath: “and that all this assembly may know that the Lord does not deliver by sword or by spear; for the battle is the Lord’s and He will give you into our hands.”” Obviously David didn’t have a sword and spear when he went against Goliath and this was pointed out again in verse 50 which states there was no sword in David’s hand. David had to borrow Goliath’s own sword AFTER Goliath was defeated. Like how Goliath’s own mouth blaspheming one time too many which led to David hearing it and to Goliath’s own downfall, so Goliath’s own sword is used against him. If the tongue is a sword Goliath’s blasphemy has cut himself down. Epic, yeah?